Don't Tell
by Miarka
Summary: Thomas finds out about Newt and Minho's relationship a little differently to the other gladers. Both book and/or movieverse, I tried to keep it ambiguous. Ship: Minewt. One Shot. Please read and review. Enjoy!


It was evening, after the doors had closed, after supper. Thomas had been there a few days now. He was sitting on a log that made a sort of bench in a grassy area of the Glade, watching the sky turn from pale pink, to brilliant orange, to dusty blue. Newt came over to him and handed him a drink.

"How'ya settling in, greenie?"

Thomas frowned, annoyed. "Don't call me greenie." He retaliated, but gladly accepted the drink.

Newt only smiled.

They talked, and soon Thomas started questioning about the runners.

"Bloody hell Thommy, you don't quit do you?" Newt responded with a raised eyebrow.

Newt obviously avoided the subject of what the runners did out in the maze, instead he described each of them to Thomas, their attitudes, who ran with who, and about Minho, the leader.

Thomas thought he saw a glimmer in Newt's eyes when he said Minho's name. It was weird. He said his name sharper too, more clearer than anything else he said, as if it was something precious, something to be worshipped. And Thomas could have sworn saw the other boy's chest rise heavier, as if his heart was beating faster, if only for that brief moment. But then Newt kept on talking and Thomas let himself forget about it. Soon after Minho approached them.

"Speak of the devil." Newt said, his whole face pricked up with happiness before he squashed it back down.

Minho came and sat on the edge of the trunk, his back against Newts but his head turned to see them.

"Minho, meet the new greenie." Newt chirped.

"I'm Thomas." He said, frowning again.

"Oh, he's got a pretty face, hasn't he?" Minho said with a laughing tone as he looked at Thomas' annoyed face.

This time it was Newt's turn to frown, though he was careful to only let Minho see, Thomas just caught it out of the corner of his eye.

Thomas looked confused and soon both older boys were sniggering at him. Newt handed Minho the drink.

"Thanks." Minho replied, taking a swig. "I need it...I've got a splitting headache."

Minho said the last part slower and Newt turned his head sharply to look at the other boy.

"You just need to relax. Take it easy." Newt replied. Every word he spoke sounded as if he was reading it from a text book, like he'd said it before, or had rehearsed it many times for a play.

Thomas got the feeling there was something going on here that he didn't understand. Something he shouldn't be a part of, like he should be feeling guilty just being there.

"Yeah, that's all it is." Minho replied, his smile, perhaps a little too grand.

Newt stood up. "I'm going to get another drink."

"Good that." Minho replied and got up himself. "Nice to meet you, greenie."

Thomas scowled for a third time.

"Whoa, if looks could kill." Minho said, laughing. "Nice to meet you...Thomas." He put extra emphasis on Thomas' name. And then he started heading off towards the forest area, the opposite direction from Newt, but he went slowly, taking his time.

Soon after it was time for bed. Among the bustle as all the boys lay out the blankets, sat around chatting and prepared to settle in, Thomas glanced up from arranging his bed sheets next to Chuck and saw Newt under the cover of the darkness making a beeline for the forest. Thomas thought he could see him carrying a glass in each hand. None of the other boys noticed Newt, or if they did, they ignored him.

* * *

><p>Later in the night Thomas awoke, and he knew he would never get back to sleep again. He had no way of knowing what time it was, but he guessed sometime deep in the middle of the night, definitely past midnight.<p>

Feeling restless, but also frustrated with his tiredness, Thomas got up and decided to take a walk around the Glade. It didn't work, eventually he ambled into the woods, not even remembering how he'd seem Minho and Newt going in there earlier that night. It was his favourite place in the Glade, even if it was creepy, especially at night. But Thomas enjoyed walking over the slightly more lumpy ground, feeling drier grass under his feet and the brush of tree bark and leaves against his skin. And the smell, it was wonderful, so much better than the clashes of Frypan's food, farm manure, fresh plants, and the sweat of boys that could be found throughout the rest of the Glade. Here it was all clean and earthy.

Suddenly a voice broke through the quiet rustle of the trees. It was Newt's voice. Thomas froze.

"So what do you think of him then?" Newt's voice rang out, loud and clear yet also soft and dreamy in the enclosed place.

Thomas's eyes darted to a grassy mound, rising up sharply between the trees. Newt must be on the other side of that mound, and whoever he had spoken two.

"Mmm, who?" A voice replied. It was Minho's, sounding quiet and slightly sleepy.

Thomas crept up the small hill, as quietly as he could. He felt like he was intruding, like he really shouldn't be there, but he also wanted to know what was going on and he'd already heard them by now, still he crawled down on his hands and knees and slowly poked his head over the top of the mound.

What he saw was the two boys lying on their backs on the slope of the mound. Newt had his head resting on Minho's chest and Minho's arms were around his torso. The Asian boy held the skinner boy's hands over his chest, encasing them under his own. His chin was resting snugly into Newt's curly hair. They both look completely comfortable and relaxed together, like they'd done it before, like this was where they felt at home.

"The ." Newt carried on, unaware that there was a third listener to the party.

"Yeah, I guess he seemed cool. Pretty capable for a greenie, especially with all the shuck stuff that's started happening since he turned up. Why do you ask, should I be jealous?"

Newt scoffled. "Egh, no way. Thomas is good and all, but you're bloody impossible to get rid of even if I wanted to."

"Good that." Minho said, and although his face was turned away Thomas saw the corners of his smile. "I'll take that as a compliment. It's about as affectionate as you get anyway, baby."

Thomas held his breath. He'd heard many terms of speech since entering the Glade, some he knew, some he didn't, all seemed strange, but he'd never heard any of the other boys call another 'baby' before and he certainly hadn't been called it himself. And somehow he knew it wasn't a term used very commonly in the Glade, at least not widely, perhaps Newt and Minho were the only ones to use it and only to each other.

"Well, at least one of us has got to be a man." Newt replied with a quick smirk.

Minho groaned. "Dude, I'm definitely the man."

Newt giggled. "Nah, you're such a sissy."

"Unfortunately I'm your sissy." Minho mumbled.

"Unfortunatly?" Newt questioned, his voice picking up. "Now what was that you were saying about me being unaffectionate?"

Minho groaned again and let his head thud deeper into the grass, his eyes closed.

Newt unprised himself from Minho's arms and sat up. Thomas hid his head behind the hill quickly and held his breath, hoping against hope Newt hadn't seen him. When he peeked back over Newt was still sitting in the same place but had turned his upper body around to face Minho. The Asian boy's eyes were still closed and slowly, very slowly Newt trailed his hand over the boy's dark hair, across his face, down his neck, then he gripped him by the collar and pulled the other boy up. Minho's eyes opened, only to draw to slits as Newt pulled him closer and closer.

"I'll show you affectionate." Newt whispered with a smile twisting on his lips.

The next instant they were kissing. Thomas felt his stomach twist, but he wasn't disgusted, more he felt confused and guilty for watching. He pulled his eyes away, turned onto his side, but he could still hear the sounds of Newt and Minho kissing on the other side. Apparently Minho was wrong, Newt could be affectionate, and Minho liked it. The sounds of their husky breathing, the occasional weak moan, drifted over to Thomas. Making his stomach twist even more, but he didn't feel sick, just really bad about himself, really bad for being there, but he knew only one thing was worse than being there, and that was being caught trying to slip away. It was this thought that kept him rooted to the spot.

After I minute Thomas heard the two boys break apart and what he thought was Minho's deep breaths reaching for air.

"Now no more teasing." Newt said happily after a pause of silence.

"No promises." Minho chuckled. "In fact I may tease you more often if this is what I get out of it."

Thomas heard a _thwacking_ sound and a short groan from Minho. Apparently Newt had hit him somewhere.

"That's what you'll get usually if you tease me." Newt replied, sounding very pleased.

Thomas could picture Minho on the other side of the mound now, rubbing his aching arm, although he had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't the arm where Newt had hit him.

"Whatever dude." He heard Minho mutter. "I don't get enough time with you anyway."

Silence fell. Minute after minute past by. Thomas wanted to leave but he was also too scared to do so, the silence was deadly. All the acting between Newt and Minho gave Thomas the idea that nobody had ever caught them like this before, and it made Thomas stop breathing the thought that he, the new greenie, could one that guilty person, that was not a position he wanted to be in.

Instead he turned his head and sneaked a look over the top of the mound again to see if he would have the opportunity to get away soon.

The two boys now sat side by side, if you could call it that, Newt was almost sitting on top of Minho, his legs already curled up around the other boy and their sides merging neatly together. Minho had his arm around Newt, cuddling him slightly, and Newt had his attention on the hand extending from that arm, the smaller boys own fingers were sliding in and out of Minho's, and tapping along the top of his hand to his fingernails, as if he was playing a game.

The silence stretched on.

"Now what?" Minho said shortly through a yawn. "Did you bring a blanket?"

"No." Newt replied. "It's too obvious."

"Baby everybody already knows." Minho groaned.

"The greenie won't." Newt reminded him. "Not yet anyway."

"Yeah, I'd love to see his shuck face when he finds out."

"I wouldn't." Newt said softly, almost melancholy. "I wouldn't want to see anyone realise it for that matter. We know that they know and I think most of them like to believe that the jokes on us, that we're so secretly lovey-dovey that we've no bloody clue that they all know, but at least some of them will suspect by now."

"We can't be open about it though, babe." Minho replied softly.

"Yeah I know." Newt said sulkily. "Good that anyway. I like it just you and me, baby."

Somehow Thomas knew Newt was lying, at least until the last word, than rang true.

"So we gonna sneak back to the Homestead or what?" Minho asked.

"Let's camp out here." Newt said. "The other boys do it, we can manage it too."

"They have blankets." Minho reminded him in a deadpan tone.

"Well, I'll just have to be your blanket then." Newt said.

Minho snorted. "Good that."

Thomas heard Newt get up and shuffle around and then a clinking sound as he moved the two empty drink glasses. Thomas saw this as his opportunity to go, he crawled down to the bottom of the mound and then several meters across the flat ground until he got to his feet, still crouching down and as quietly and cautiously as he could started to back away from the mound. As he got nearer to the edge of the woods he broke into jog and then into a run across the Glade grass as he came clear of the trees.

Finally he got back to his blanket and covered himself up, to his surprise he fell asleep quickly after.

* * *

><p>Thomas woke up early the next morning, when the sky was only just starting to get shades of light blue in it. He shook Chuck awake.<p>

"Boy, you look like klunk." Chuck said when he sat up.

"Yeah lack of sleep." Thomas said and then he glanced around, some of the other gladers were already awake, but none near him or Chuck, and they were all just milling about and trying to get out of the grogginess of sleep. He turned back to Chuck, his face serious and nervous.

"Last night I saw Newt and Minho...in the forest...together."

Chuck's eyes widened. "No way? You gotta be the first, especially for a greenbean that's-"

"What is going on?" Thomas interrupted in a bark of a whisper.

"Okay, okay." Chuck said, raising his hands and leaning back a bit. Soon though he leaned in again, his voice as quiet a whisper as he could make it.

"No one talks about it you see, we're not allowed, well no one's said that we're not allowed but we just don't, they think it's a secret and we all act like it's a secret, can't ever speak about it, make a joke about it or mention it at all, ever." Chuck said, almost as serious as Thomas had been when he'd woken the boy up.

Thomas nodded.

Chuck continued. "Newt and Minho, you see, they're together. Like boy and girl together, but they're both guys."

"They think the other boys are against it?" Thomas asked.

"I don't know." Chuck shrugged. "If think if any of the gladers really hated it they'd have of said something by now. Still from what I know Newt and Minho are all secretive about it, use codes when they're going to meet up and everything."

Thomas's mind flashed back to the night before and the look Newt and Minho had exchanged when the runner had said he had a splitting headache, he suddenly realised that Minho had never had a headache at all. After pondering on this he turned his attention back to Chuck who was still talking.

"...By now no one cares, I think some of the older boys might even be jealous."

"Jealous?" Thomas asked, shocked.

"Yeah jealous" Chuck said "that they've got each other but there are no girls around for them to pick from."

"Oh." Thomas sighed. "How long have they been together?"

Chuck shrugged again. "Since nearly always, since the beginning since we started arriving in this shuck place. I don't really know, I was the last greenie remember, I only heard a little bit about it from one of Frypan's boys."

The two of them fell silent and shortly after Chuck turned all his attention to his bed sheets. It struck Thomas as strange that if everyone knew about Newt and Minho then every glader must go through the same conversation that he just had with Chuck. But from the sound of things he was the first to see them together.

His eyes circled the glade. It was time for the runners to leave for the day, at the north door he spotted Minho and his running partner, a boy he didn't know. Newt strolled over to them. He watched fascinated and transfixed as Newt bid both boys goodbye. Newt and Minho didn't kiss, didn't hug, didn't even shake hands or touch in any other way, but Thomas could see, even from his distance in the middle of the Glade, there was a split second of a moment when the two boys looked at each other and Thomas knew that their eyes had lit up as they looked at one another and that Newt was saying, although he wasn't saying it out loud, the same thing he must've said every morning to Minho. _Please come back to me today._

And Thomas felt glad. He wasn't even really sure why, but he felt glad that in this terrible yet peaceful, confusing and messed up place that was apparently now his home that two people, two simple people, two young boys had something that seemed more important than the gladers survival, than their finding a way out of the stupid maze, what they seemed to have was life. And life gave Thomas hope. _Good that,_ he thought.


End file.
